Eoran Toriet spread himself thin upon the platform of the balcony that hung over the busy avenue, stomach down, sweat beginning to bead upon his brow. Mid-year found the seasonal heat especially intense as various fronts from distant land masses colluded to make the passing days as uncomfortable as possible.

It was, of course, the Ossa that were made to feel the worst of all the wright classes in Port Haven, a conspiracy whose foundation was equal parts economics and upbringing. Due to the high rate of poverty among their population, many of them lacked the means to afford what was considered a luxury: artificially cooled air. The air conditioners they were able to purchase were the type that exacerbated the situation—the greatest downside to the cycle of creating coolness was that the leftover heat was spat back out into the street hotter than it had originally been taken in. On the other hand, pride made the Ossan people obstinate. Rather than seeking refuge the bloodwrights took to their stoops, balconies, and roofs where they would lounge with feline disinterest. From coal-dark pavement rose drunken striations of heat that threatened to shape a mirage. Eoran watched this natural phenomena with an unfettered infatuation; he had always heard tales of hapless wayfarers receiving prophetic visions from breaks in the aether and couldn’t help but wonder if the material world was about to impart upon him some great secret.

Kadenja performs miracles at The Altar; Eoran accompanies an elder to an open air market.

Drowning.

It always felt like drowning.

Even after ten years, Kadenja Toriet always opened The Altar with water in his lungs. It bubbled and frothed from his mouth with the desperation of breathing, the necessity of obedience under guise of miracle trickery, survival treason.

He used to fight and claw to clear his lungs, to ease the hemorrhage in his thorax that pressed ever inward. The pressure used to crush him, disintegrate the pleura that held his parts in human form. These days, however, he understood he was a vessel. He was simply a book and every sermon was a reading etched into his sleepless body, his somatoform mind.